Personally... I dont know how to win the game. But I have played it before and I can help you with the tray part.
Have an array of boolean (true/false) representing which trays are in play and which trays are not. True is in play and false is out of play.
int number_of_trays = 30;
boolean trays[] = new boolean[number_of_trays];
Assign the price values to each tray randomly based on a List (possible) that had all the values initially.
java.util.List food_items = new java.util.ArrayList();
// Populate list of food items...
food_items.add( "Chicken - 600$" );
food_items.add( "Potato - 55$" );
food_items.add( "Cow Liver - 10,000$" );
// etc....
If youd rather make this object oriented you could create an foo_item object with a name variable and price variable.
public class food_item
{
String name;
int price;
public food_item( String n, int p )
{
name = n;
price = p;
}
// bla bla make some get/set methods
// such as:
public void setName( String n )
{
name = n;
}
public String getName()
{
return name;
}
//etc...
}
///////////////////////////////////////////
// Somewhere in the game initilization
///////////////////////////////////////////
java.util.List food_items = new java.util.ArrayList();
// populate list based on objects
food_items.add( new food_item( "Chicken",600) );
food_items.add( new food_item( "Potato",55) );
food_items.add( new food_item( "Cow Liver",10000) );
// later you can extract these values
Ok... theres more to be done. Right now you have:
1) java.util.List food_items = new java.util.ArrayList(); //populated list
2) int number_of_trays = food_items.size(); //numb of trays = numb of items
3) boolean trays[] = new boolean[number_of_trays];
good, good... Now you want to extract the food_items out of the list and assign them random index values from 0 to number_of_trays. You do this to make the game platters random each time.
java.util.Random rand = new java.util.Random(); //random numb generator
food_item item_index[] = new food_item[number_of_trays]; //all are null on initilization
for ( int i = 0; i < number_of_trays; ) //loop until all indeces are used (non-null)
{
int index = rand.nextInt(number_of_trays); //choose random number from 0 to number_of_trays, assign it to index
if ( item_index[index] == null ) //if index is empty
{
item_index[index] = (food_item)food_items.get(0); //get FIRST food item from list and store into item_index array
food_items.remove(0); //remove FIRST food item from list
// all other food items are left
i++; //increment counter by one because a food_item was assigned a platter
}
}
BAM! I gave you alot of goodies here.
you can use that to initilize your game meaning:
Get X number of trays with X number of food items and they will be randomly placed in different "platters" of the item_index array.
Second question:
To choose cases. If this is a console game do a google search on "Scanner Java" and go to the javadocs link to use the Scanner input command.
If this is graphical. Then you make a JFrame, then extend a JPanel for the "GameBoard." For each food_item in the array you should draw a platter with "Graphics.drawImage(Image,x,y,null);". To select any one of the platters, you MUST KNOW WHERE YOU DREW THEM!!! If you can track down the places that you placed the platters then use the distance equation (WHICH YOU BETTER KNOW) to find how far the mouse is from a platter. If distance <= then X where X is the radius, then you select that platter on click. Better?
Good.
Your welcome. I gotta study for midterms now... so bye!